500 Years of Past Be in East Anglia: A Variationist Investigation

Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy; David Britain

doi:10.18290/rh237106.5s

Data publikacji : 2023-07-24

Tom 71 Nr 6sp (2023)

Pięćset lat dziejów formy przeszłej czasownika to be w Anglii Wschodniej. Badanie wariacyjności form

Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2282-7565

David Britain

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4228-0242

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh237106.5s

Abstrakt

Jak powszechnie wiadomo, czasownik to be jest najczęściej używanym czasownikiem w różnych czasach, osobach i liczbie w języku angielskim, zarówno w mowie, jak i w piśmie. Co więcej, przynajmniej w standardowej odmianie angielszczyzny jest to czasownik o najwyższym stopniu nieregularności odmiany, charakteryzujący się wieloma odrębnymi formami ortograficznymi. Ten stopień nieregularności nie jest jednak powszechny w całym kręgu anglojęzycznym – bardziej regularne wzorce można znaleźć w wielu niestandardowych odmianach angielszczyzny. Pomimo licznych badań empirycznych w literaturze dotyczącej wariacyjności zjawisk językowych poświęconych formie przeszłej czasownika to be i pomimo znacznego korpusu danych na temat odmiany angielszczyzny z terenów Anglii Wschodniej, a zwłaszcza prac autorstwa Petera Trudgilla (np. 2021), jak dotąd nie przeprowadzono badań wariacyjnych nad przeszłą formą czasownika to be w centralnym obszarze językowym Wschodniej Anglii. W niniejszym artykule staramy się wypełnić tę lukę badawczą, analizując zbiory danych ze Wschodniej Anglii, rozdzielone między sobą dystansem historycznym długości połowy tysiąclecia. Badania nasze rozpoczynają się bowiem od historyczno-socjolingwistycznego studium form przeszłych czasownika to be na etapie późnośrednioangielskim, i polegają na obserwacjach, konstatacjach, opracowaniu ilościowym i analizie obecności tychże form w jednym z najważniejszych korpusów językowych tego okresu: internetowym elektronicznym wydaniu (wschodnioangielskich) Listów Pastonów w Virginia University Electronic Text Center. Następnie, przenosimy się znacznie bliżej dnia dzisiejszego, aby przeanalizować bardziej współczesny korpus Wschodniej Anglii pod kątem zmiennych wzorców form przeszłych czasownika to be, tj. korpus wywiadów socjolingwistycznych zebranych przez Petera Trudgilla w Norwich w latach sześćdziesiątych XX wieku (zob. Trudgill, 1974). Chociaż analizowane dane są (co zrozumiałe) wysoce zróżnicowane, przedstawiona analiza pozwala poszerzyć nasze rozumienie wariacyjności form przeszłych to be, zarówno w perspektywie diachronicznej, jak i synchronicznej, poprzez umiejscowienie angielszczyzny terenu Wschodniej Anglii na mapie dialektów języka angielskiego.

Słowa kluczowe:

socjolingwistyka historyczna, formy przeszłe czasownika to be, niwelacja, wariacja i zmiany językowe, Listy Pastonów, Norwich, Anglia Wschodnia, Northern Subject Rule, polaryzacja

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Utwór dostępny jest na licencji Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa – Użycie niekomercyjne – Bez utworów zależnych 4.0 Międzynarodowe.

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Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy

jmcampoy@um.es
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2282-7565

Afiliacja:

University of Murcia Hiszpania

Biogram

Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Murcia in Spain, where he teaches Sociolinguistics, Varieties of English, History of English, and sociolinguistic research methods. His research areas include sociolinguistics, dialectology, and socio-stylistics, with special interest in language variation and change, where he has published books such as Sociolinguistic Styles (2016), Style-Shifting in Public (with J. A. Cutillas-Espinosa, 2012), The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics (with J. C. Conde-Silvestre, 2012), Diccionario de Sociolingüística (with P. Trudgill, 2007), Metodología de la Investigación Sociolingüística (with M. Almeida, 2005), Sociolinguistics and the History of English (with J. C. Conde-Silvestre, 2005), Geolingüística (1999), Variation and Linguistic Change in English (with J. C. Conde-Silvestre, 1999), and Sociolingüística Británica (1993), as well as numerous articles in leading journals.

David Britain

david.britain@unibe.ch
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4228-0242

Afiliacja:

University of Bern Szwajcaria

Biogram

David Britain has been Professor of Modern English Linguistics at the University of Bern in Switzerland since 2010. His research interests embrace language variation and change, varieties of English (especially in Southern and Eastern England, the Southern Hemisphere, especially New Zealand, Australia and the Falkland Islands, and the Pacific, especially Micronesia), dialect contact and attrition, new dialect formation, second dialect acquisition, dialect ideologies and the use of new technologies, such as smartphone applications, in collecting dialect data. He is also actively engaged in research at the dialectology-human geography interface, especially with respect to space/place, urban/rural and the role of mobilities. He is co-author (with Laura Rupp) of Linguistic perspectives on a variable English morpheme: Let’s talk about -s (2019), editor of Language in the British Isles (2007), co-editor (with Jenny Cheshire) of Social Dialectology (2003), and co-author of Linguistics: An Introduction (with Andrew Radford, Martin Atkinson, Harald Clahsen and Andrew Spencer) (2nd ed., 2009). He was Associate Editor of the Journal of Sociolinguistics between 2008 and 2017.